England kicked off the much-awaited three-match Test series against Pakistan in style as they shattered many Test cricket records on the first day of the match at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett got off to a fast start, scoring 174 runs without losing a wicket in the first session of the match, setting a national record for most runs in an opening session of a Test match alongside a world record for the same in over 100 years of test history.
The attacking cricket was seen from the very first over, when Zak Crawley scored 14 runs in Naseem Shah’s over, becoming England’s first batter to score the most runs in an opening over in red-ball cricket.
The opening pair played aggressively, completing the first hundred in just 83 balls which is the first time in English Test cricket that the first hundred runs were scored in such a few number of balls.
In the first session of the day, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett maintained a 6.44 run rate, which will be recorded as the highest run rate for the England red-ball team in their opening session.
Zak Crawley completed his century in just 86 balls, the fastest for an England opener and the fourth fastest overall, joining the likes of Gilbert Jessop, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, and Ian Botham on the list.
Zak Crawley, who scored 91* runs in the first session, became the third batter, after India’s Shikhar Dhawan and Australia’s David Warner, to score the most runs in a test match’s first session since 2008.
England, meanwhile, broke a 112-year-old cricket record by scoring 506 runs on the first day of the match. Previously, Australia had scored 494 runs on the first day of a match against South Africa in 1910.
This is what we called Pakistani hospitality!